Assignment 1

Subject: Psycholinguistics

Teacher: Marciano Escutia López

Realisation: Rafael Accorinti

Elvira Calderón

Ana Casado

Language Speeches

Language has been always a relevant matter for all humans in order to communicate with others by

sharing feelings and ideas for maintaining a culture. Due to its world-wide importance, this topic

has been introduced and deeply explained by professor Paul Bloom at Yale University and by

professor Robert Sapolsky at Stanford’s linking different ideas relating language as second

language and mother tongue, its acquisition regarding babies, to what extent is language a cognitive

inherent activity found in the brain, how this languages are constructed and a brief explanation of

non-human communication.

The meaning of language explained in both speeches refers to the human ability to interact with

others by using words compiled together following a set of linguistic rules. Therefore, this scientific

notion of language is restricted firstly to systems like Dutch, English or Spanish although it can be

argued that language can refer also to music, art or what animals do.

The principal characteristic of all languages is that they are present in every culture aiming at

describing true abstract concepts or lying about them from the past, the present or the future. These

languages can be spoken by every single person who has no neurological problems or who has not

been isolated from the society, because language must have been heard before in order to learn it.

This statement is reinforced by Darwin's words as 'all humans instinctively need to speak rather

than write or read'.

As an example of this, ancient cultures who had no language in common created the pidgin in order

to communicate with each other by mixing up different languages. Once the pidgin had been

established by a set of grammatical and syntactical rules, it received the name of 'creole'.

Therefore, it can be stated that language is part of human nature and its peculiar characteristic of

creativeness and the possibility of obtaining infinite number of results with a finite vocabulary

makes language even more interesting to study.

However, where is language found? Is it innate or is actually learnt through time?

In order to give response to these questions, the very well-known linguistic Noam Chomsky had

came to a theory where he stated that there is a part of the brain responsible for language acquisition

as this capacity to speak is primary inherent. He also added by another theory named The

Generativity of Language that all children create new constructions, words and sentences although

this might have not been reinforced previously.

Studies made in Nicaragua with deaf children proved latest Chomsky's point that children can make

up their own language in order to communicate, first by using words and after by adding a

hierarchical linguistic construction. The reason for this is then the existence of an innate structure of

language that enables kids to generalize the rules of language such as grammar and syntax.

Moreover, language acquisition is further supported by the model based on the poverty of stimulus

which suggest that more language is generated than heard or rewarded as some cultures do not

consider speaking to their babies because they cannot produce a word but these still acquire

language in the end.

Further studies have came to the conclusion that language relates more to underlying cognition

Vista previa parcial del texto

¡Descarga The Science of Language: Psycholinguistics and Language Acquisition - Prof. Escutia López y más Apuntes en PDF de Filología Inglesa solo en Docsity!

Assignment 1

Subject: Psycholinguistics Teacher: Marciano Escutia López

Realisation: Rafael Accorinti Elvira Calderón Ana Casado

Language Speeches

Language has been always a relevant matter for all humans in order to communicate with others by sharing feelings and ideas for maintaining a culture. Due to its world-wide importance, this topic has been introduced and deeply explained by professor Paul Bloom at Yale University and by professor Robert Sapolsky at Stanford’s linking different ideas relating language as second language and mother tongue, its acquisition regarding babies, to what extent is language a cognitive inherent activity found in the brain, how this languages are constructed and a brief explanation of non-human communication.

The meaning of language explained in both speeches refers to the human ability to interact with others by using words compiled together following a set of linguistic rules. Therefore, this scientific notion of language is restricted firstly to systems like Dutch, English or Spanish although it can be argued that language can refer also to music, art or what animals do. The principal characteristic of all languages is that they are present in every culture aiming at describing true abstract concepts or lying about them from the past, the present or the future. These languages can be spoken by every single person who has no neurological problems or who has not been isolated from the society, because language must have been heard before in order to learn it. This statement is reinforced by Darwin's words as 'all humans instinctively need to speak rather than write or read'. As an example of this, ancient cultures who had no language in common created the pidgin in order to communicate with each other by mixing up different languages. Once the pidgin had been established by a set of grammatical and syntactical rules, it received the name of 'creole'. Therefore, it can be stated that language is part of human nature and its peculiar characteristic of creativeness and the possibility of obtaining infinite number of results with a finite vocabulary makes language even more interesting to study.

However, where is language found? Is it innate or is actually learnt through time? In order to give response to these questions, the very well-known linguistic Noam Chomsky had came to a theory where he stated that there is a part of the brain responsible for language acquisition as this capacity to speak is primary inherent. He also added by another theory named The Generativity of Language that all children create new constructions, words and sentences although this might have not been reinforced previously. Studies made in Nicaragua with deaf children proved latest Chomsky's point that children can make up their own language in order to communicate, first by using words and after by adding a hierarchical linguistic construction. The reason for this is then the existence of an innate structure of language that enables kids to generalize the rules of language such as grammar and syntax. Moreover, language acquisition is further supported by the model based on the poverty of stimulus which suggest that more language is generated than heard or rewarded as some cultures do not consider speaking to their babies because they cannot produce a word but these still acquire language in the end. Further studies have came to the conclusion that language relates more to underlying cognition

rather than being a primary motoric activity where some proves are, in first place that deaf babies

In order to produce these languages, there is a set of linguistic rules which establish the correct

hierarchical organisation of words within sentences in order to understand arguments although they have not been heard before. The reason is that the brain, which has a 'little' dictionary where to consult these rules called the 'lexicon', will recognise these set of rules in a fraction of a second. Firstly, phonology is a system of sounds that a language has as so to distinguish it from the rest. In order to recognise the beginning and the end of a word from each sound, there are boundaries which also enable us to differentiate pauses between words. As a provided example of this, top-down processing shows how the flow of information from the upper part of the brain relating the most complex cognitive systems (such as memory) can be influenced by the bottom part where already known information stored by the individual is located. Secondly, morphology refers to morphemes as the smallest meaningful unit described by Ferdinand Saussure as ''the arbitrariness of the sign''. A demonstrative example is the following: 'dog' is a morpheme and a word but whereas 'dog' is made up of one unique morpheme, 'dogs' is another word constituted by two different morphemes, 'dog' and 's'. This combination of morphemes give different meaning to words and these small units are the ones storage in the brain instead of single words. Thirdly, syntax stands for the rules and principals that allows to combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences. This combinatorial system was described by Alexander Von Humboldt as ''the infinite use of finite media'' as explained before of finite vocabulary and an infinite number of possible combinations. Nevertheless, different rules can conspire to create problems such as ambiguity, stated by Noam Chomsky or recursion. Hence, ambiguity means that a unique sentence has two possible different meanings and recursion theorizes that unlimited extension of any natural language is possible using the recursive device of embedding clauses within sentences.

Finally, non-human communication is defined as any animal behaviour that influences the current or the future behaviour of another one. It can be argued that this communication can be called also language in terms of exchanging information with others as has been said in the beginning. Animals can exchange information in several ways though this communication systems have no morphology, syntax or phonology as it consist of their own behaviour. Neither they have linguistic elements nor non-human animals can express feelings displaced in time such as humans do but just reffer to their behaviour and the action in the present. For example, monkeys use calling to convey different warnings such as the attack from a snake. Consequently, animals do not share abstract ideas or feelings but they communicate for survival. Yet, there are cases of primates trained by humans based on repetitive exercises. It has been demonstrated that monkeys can learn words but it takes long-time periods of training to teach them unlike the normal develop of a child who can learn a word in an hour and who will develop his language by using adjuncts or conjuncts, something missing in chimps. For instance, this study shows how poor the language capacity of chimpanzees is in comparison with the human one as they lack the physiological structures to speak though it proves that they are still able to learn something.

The conclusion that can be drawn from these two speeches at Yale and Stanford Universities is that language is an important element of our society for sharing information between us. The process of language acquisition has different stages on humans in which the syntax, the morphology and the phonology are developed. Humans also have the capacity to learn two or more languages, however, this capacity of acquiring a mother tongue or learning a second language can disappear in time or become damage due to aphasias and other problems found in the brain. These statements reinforce Noam Chomky's theory of language being a cognitive and innate capacity found in specific areas of the brain and being separate from other motoric activities. Nevertheless, not only humans can communicate with each other but also animals have their own capacity to express warnings, food sources or even, sexual attraction though they cannot express feelings within displacement in time by using linguistic or grammatical features.

The Science of Language: Psycholinguistics and Language Acquisition - Prof. Escutia López, Apuntes de Filología Inglesa

Documentos relacionados

Vista previa parcial del texto

¡Descarga The Science of Language: Psycholinguistics and Language Acquisition - Prof. Escutia López y más Apuntes en PDF de Filología Inglesa solo en Docsity!

Assignment 1

Language Speeches